Understand Us
by President Weasel
Summary: It is a Thursday when John Watson finally snaps. It was over fairly quickly. There were only six other patrons in the pub aside from himself, as well as the bartender and a waitress. He shot every single one of them. Unbeta'd and britpicked. Rating may go up in subsequent chapters. Reviews, comments and critiques always welcome :)
1. Chapter 1

It is a Thursday when John Watson finally snaps.

It was over fairly quickly. There were only six other patrons in the pub aside from himself, as well as the bartender and a waitress.

He shot every single one of them. They all died.

He turned himself in immediately to the police. The DI who admitted him was calm and let him speak until he was finished, and then explained what was going to happen to him now in an equally calm manner. As he was lead to an overnight cell, he bizarrely thought that in different circumstances he might have been the sort of person he'd be friends with.

There was a court case somewhere, and men in suits shouting at each other, but he barely noticed. Then there were laboratories and sterile offices with harsh white lighting that made him feel sick. There were lots of tests, and looking through the records of his life.

Psychotic breakdown, they said, and sent him away again.

Harry cried when she came to say goodbye, but he didn't cry with her.

It is also a Thursday when he is admitted to the hospital. He notices the coincidence in the dates, but forgets it almost immediately. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

Nothing matters.

Nothing matters.

Nothing matters.

He was going to die here, so nothing mattered anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**(Note: I stupidly forgot to add this in the first chapter, but this fic was inspired by this lovely piece of artwork by moriartea-cup: image/44204489373 so credits for the idea go to them and everything :D )**

He is allowed out of his cell twice a day, at 7 in the morning for a checkup and at 4 in the afternoon for an hour in the 'common room'. He is supposed to talk to the other patients. His therapist said he should talk to other people because it will make him 'feel normal'.

He can't remember the last time he felt anything other than numb.

_His nightmares began to bleed into the day not long after he returned from Afghanistan. He would be in the supermarket, or walking in the park, and then suddenly he would be back in the desert surrounded by enemy fire and corpses._

_Loud noises would make it worse. Cars backfiring, children crying, construction sites. He took to carrying his gun around with him, just in case. _

At the hospital, things weren't any different. But now when he started screaming and crying, there were doctors and needles full of sedative. And when he woke up afterwards, he was surrounded not by the people he'd just killed, but by the clean white walls of his cell. He knew he should have been relieved, but he just couldn't find it in himself to care.


	3. Chapter 3

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

The man standing in front of his chair was tall and pale and in padded handcuffs. His smile was, for want of a better word, shark-like.

John ignored the tiny bubble of interest inside his chest, and decided that he hated him.

"You're in here for having a psychotic breakdown, most likely caused by your PTSD from being shot in the war. You killed six, no, seven people, with a gun you weren't supposed to have. You turned yourself in immediately afterwards. Guilty conscience, oh dear." The man smiled again, with too many teeth and not enough emotion. He held out his right hand as best he could in the cuffs. "Sherlock Holmes. Ex-consulting detective to Scotland Yard."

Without knowing quite why he did it, John took the offered hand. "John Watson. And. And it was eight people. Um. Actually."

The man named Sherlock smiled a third time. This one was brief, but so very genuine that John almost believed that there was real affection behind it. "Well, John. I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

Despite himself, John found he was looking forward to tomorrow afternoon.


	4. Chapter 4

Four weeks later, and the two of them were practically inseparable, at least in their free time. John's therapist had commented on a marked improvement in his behaviour, and he felt the best that he had since before he was shot. Life was pretty good, mental hospital notwithstanding.

"Ok, ok. Do…do that one." John nodded towards one of the nurses attending to an elderly woman n the other side of the room.

Sherlock looked up from the napkin he was scribbling on, and smirked. "Easy. Married twice, four kids from her first marriage and one from her second, with another on the way. She doesn't know she's pregnant again, though. Had an eating disorder as a teenager…no, in her early twenties. Oh! And bisexual, although she doesn't know that either."

Grinning, John shook his head. "Amazing. I don't know how you do it, but it's amazing."

"John, could you have really forgotten everything that I've told you? It's really just a simple deductive process – "

He waved Sherlock off with one hand. "Yes yes, I know. It's just a figure of speech."

There was a break in the conversation, the only sound from either of them being Sherlock scratching away at the paper with a blunted pencil, when John blurted out, "Do you ever get bored here?"

Sherlock raised his eyebrows incredulously, and laughed. "How on earth could I not, John? A man of my intellect, cooped up in one building for an indeterminate amount of time with nothing to do?"

"Fair point. I just wish there was something to do, you know? If we could spend all day together and not just an hour…" John trailed off, distracted by nurses bringing around cups of tepid tea in Styrofoam cups. He did not notice Sherlock pause his scribbling, only to smirk and begin again with determination.

They sat in companionable silence for the rest of their time out. When the nurses came to collect them and take them back to their wards, Sherlock turned and slipped a scrap of napkin into John's hand. The movement was so fast John wouldn't have believed it happened, had he not felt the evidence clenched in his fingers. And with a wink and a toothy smirk over his shoulder, Sherlock was lead out the common room door, cuffed hands held out in front of him.

When John got back to his own room, he waited a full ten minutes before opening his hand. He had expected a few things, but a series of numbers was certainly not one of them.


	5. Chapter 5

http: (_) . /(_)128520309e4bf09aee0ddc257d52 2df6/(_)tumblr_mjqvtgmuoU1rjgvwso1_


End file.
